Science Directions
Walt Kelly's insightful declaration that "we have met the enemy, and he is us" is one of those wonderful quotes that seems increasingly apropos for some complaints that APA receives from its members.
Kelly (creator of the Pogo comic strip) said it in 1970, and so we find that the enemy is restricted to the male of the species. It works just as well, however, if we say, "we have met the enemy, and they are us." Either way you say it, Pogo's got it right.
Now, before I go on, allow me to express my personal thanks to the many members who help us in our work on behalf of the science of psychology. In addition, I want to be careful in my reference to Pogo. I don't mean to imply that we make no mistakes. Indeed, because we do, we are grateful (even while embarrassed) when you point out errors in our ways.
When you remind us that we have not considered a particular point of view, or have not addressed a particular issue, or have not remembered to cite a particular author, your information is helpful. However, APA is not the enemy.
Let me tell you why. Sometimes when you ask why we did not consider "X," the objective answer is that you (or someone very much like you) did not reply to an inquiry we had made when we were formulating our policy or engaging in a particular activity. As a result, we did not benefit from your advice on an important issue. When you do inform us, we know better and we use that information.
I know you could still pose the question of why we did not ask more people, why we did not try harder to come by the critical information; you could even question why we did not already know the solution to that problem ourselves. After all, your colleagues knew it; your students knew it; and sometimes we are told even your four-year-old looked askance.
Well, we would have welcomed all this advice if we had had it. We do look for information in many different places, not only from the members of our committees and the Board of Scientific Affairs, but also from the executive committees of the science divisions. We regularly contact all for advice and for nominations of psychologists to be appointed to government agency advisory committees. Of course, the Science Directorate and the Public Policy Office staff start with a good deal of information that helps us to steer the right course.
But I can hear it now. We depend on volunteers, and everybody knows that samples of convenience are not representative. Actually, our volunteers often constitute samples of inconvenience. We have to repeatedly contact psychologists who will fully represent different but crucial views, and different but crucial knowledge bases. We often have to plead and cajole people to participate.
Some of you did not join a committee or a board when you were asked to join it because you said we don't do things right and you decided to wait until we did. That is one approach, but it is very much like refraining from helping someone correct a behavior without providing sufficient guidance to allow the improved behavior to occur.
I should point out that we also often hear from those who have reluctantly joined a committee or board (never mind those who have joined enthusiastically). Gratefully, we note that they find working within the organization provides many rewards in the sense that they discover their work makes a difference. It's often fun to criticize and ridicule what the establishment does, mocking from the outside. It's more constructive to change things from the inside. Won't you please help us achieve that?
Come visit our Web site, and see what we do for the science of psychology and for scientist psychologists. See where we can use some help. Let us note but two examples: Join "One Book, One Psychology" to discuss different books and thus increase mutual understanding of each other's work. Write op ed pieces to educate the public. Find fuller descriptions of these and other activities on our home page.
